Last week, I had the opportunity to attend the Women’s Goal Setting Summit, an event put on each year by the You Flourish Company.

I’ll admit, I’m not really the demographic for the summit. It was very extroverted and touchy-feely—two things that I tend to…not be. That’s not to say extroversion or emotion are bad. I often see these words (quietly, and usually in rooms by ourselves) used to slight extroverts and demonize the perceived-feminine “side” of the brain—a centuries-old bias.

But this blog isn’t about that.

Instead, the point of this blog is what I learned. Funnily enough, my largest lesson didn’t come from the official programming (which was great, too).

The beautiful, brutal oxymoron

Anyone who knows me in real life knows that I’m a bit of an oxymoron.

I am incredibly cerebral. I also feel emotion deeply. Both of these traits have their strengths, but both can be weaknesses when overdeveloped. Neither cerebral nor emotional is good or bad—they just are.

It’s part of why I called my blog what I did. I wanted to highlight the convergence I see in my life of two disparate parts. There is beauty in the ballgown, yes, but there is strength too. There is strength in the badass, yes, but there is beauty too.

Do introverts dream of silence?

I didn’t really know what to expect at the summit. I was going because my workplace had an extra ticket—the same workplace I’d been a part of for just over a month. I barely knew my coworkers. Heck, I’m still getting a handle on what my job is!

At first, I thought spending the day with these two women would be pleasant but surface-level. They play MarioCart; I play Baulder’s Gate. They listen to country music; I listen to Hobbit-core. They’re cheer captains, I’m in the bleachers. I figured we’d get along well enough but wouldn’t become close. But as the day went on, I realized I’d been overly judgmental—a theme you might catch as this blog goes on.

We traveled to the summit separately. I expected the atmosphere to be a mix of academic and professional conference vibes: lots of networking, lots of vendors, and introverts sticking like glue to the extroverts they came with.

You can imagine my horror when I got my name badge and table number—only to see that the tables were assigned so that no one who knew each other sat together.

Yep. My introverted, so-autistic-that-the-diagnosing-doctor-wrote-'It’s-a-wonder-she-wasn’t-caught-as-a-child' self was…not thrilled. I wasn’t going to be seated with people I barely knew. I was going to be seated with strangers. No buffer, no safety net. Just me, a table full of strangers, and eight hours to survive.

Crap.

My saving grace? The table leaders. They must’ve known some of us would break into a cold sweat at the thought of small talk. Ours was quick to facilitate discussion, gently pulling the introverts out of their shells while reining in the extroverts. My usual hack of interviewing my way through interactions wasn’t going to cut it—not with her around.

It was like having a security blanket ripped away. So, I did what any child of two scientists would do: I sat back, observed, and collected data. I thought it would be the safest way to fit in, keep the strangers comfortable, and maybe get something out of the summit.

But then, something shifted.

The shift

I don’t remember when it changed. I don’t really remember why. I do know it was early in the day. Maybe someone said something about introspection, maybe my coffee just kicked in. I decided to do something new. Something different.

So, when I found myself observing the women at my table, I forced myself to step back and watch in a new way. Instead of observing my surroundings like the PTSD-addled traumatized cucumber that I am, I sat back and watched myself.

Not to be clickbait-y, but what I found shocked me.

The women at my table (and at all of the other tables, of course) were the women who would have scared the hell out of me in high school and college. They were beautiful—and not in the trite “everyone is beautiful in their own way.” 

Nope, they were literally, traditionally gorgeous. Their hair was mirror-shiny. Their actions were graceful and intentional. They all were soft-spoken in a way that invited conversation, but not in a way that minimized their voices. Heck, I’ve since learned that one is a literal beauty queen.

In short, they were all stunning.

And then, there was me. The fridge in a dress with sausages for fingers—or at least, that’s what the cruelest part of my brain likes to scream. The part I’ve worked hard to quiet, but some days, it still grabs the loudspeaker.

I know I wouldn’t say those things to anyone else—I’d be horrified if someone thought that about themselves—but being kind to myself has always felt like trying to learn a second language. I know the words; I just don’t always know how to mean them.

Would I have looked any of those women in the eye and called them a fridge in a dress? Of course not. I wouldn’t be operating out of one of my key values: kindness.

But if kindness is supposedly one of my key values, why wasn’t I extending it to myself? What made me so special that I would break my values for little ol’ me?

Returning to my values

I’ll be honest: I’ve probably already abandoned the goals I set at the summit. I don’t even remember what they were. But that doesn’t feel like a failure—it feels like a step in a larger process. What stayed with me wasn’t a to-do list but a shift in perspective. I’ve spent so much time focusing on what makes me different, on why I’ll never belong, that I missed something simple: I already do.

Those women weren’t an unreachable ideal—they were a mirror. They weren’t beautiful because they were perfect. They were beautiful because they were honest, intentional, and unapologetically themselves.

As we talked about our goals and hurdles, the playing field leveled. I saw their struggles, insecurities, and shortcomings. I also saw how each of them was special, how each was worthy of care. I realized the standards I held myself to didn’t align with the values I claimed to live by.

By trying to fit in, I’d been hurting myself. I called it brutal honesty, self-preservation even. It wasn’t. Cruelty is still cruelty, even if it’s directed inwards.

Honesty and beauty don’t have to be opposites. They’re most powerful when they exist together. And if I can see that in others, maybe it’s time to start seeing it in myself too.